D & D = Death & Destruction.

6 out of 15 voters say, "Mr.B is going to DIE!!!"

I'm not sure how clear that photo will be, but it's the CIN D&D Death Poll.
(you can see a better view of it, by actually clicking on it.)

It asks CIN readers to guess which D&D character is likely to die first in the game. (For the record, I know it's a bit. I'm not actually upset about it. I think it's amusing that 6 out of 15 voters are POSITIVE that I'm going to get whacked. Who knows, they may be right.)

So, yeah, I'm playing D & D again, for the first time since college. I have finally found an exceptionally good storyteller. Eric Schaeffer is leading us all on a merry campaign together. I am good friends with all of the other players (except the one that I've only met once, but who knows, we might become friends in the future.)

I'm playing a longsword fighter. Which is what this team of bards, wizards and archers actually need right now. So many long distance combat folks, that they're pretty useless if the baddies ever get up close and personal with them. That's where my sword and shield come in handy.

I've only played a single night. Looks like we're making Monday nights our regular game night. We play in Rene Duquesnoy's swank-ass bachelor pad. Everyone is remarkably dedicated to the game and take it sort of seriously. There's no person that has to be convinced that they are enjoying themselves and should get into it. And when we aren't seriously discussing strategy and the world, we're making bits on one another and giving each other grief.

On the first night, which was all combat by the way, we worked together as a team to repel a bunch of forest bandits from three horsecarts in a wagon train. Honestly, I performed pretty poorly. I was just a starting level character and even getting my sword to connect with anything but air was a chore. Together though, we managed to survive and even turned a profit in the process. I anticipate that at the next session that we're going to do a little more role-playing.

In discussion with the storyteller, we discovered that my character is a foreigner, lost in this world. And as such, he has a very tenuous grasp of the common language. So, I'll be flirting with a dialect throughout the game. It's a thick, intentionally articulate Eastern Eurpean dialect and I'm attempting to use the term "I" whenever I refer to myself, even when "my" or "mine" is more appropriate. Also, I'm attempting to keep LITERALLY everything I say, in the present tense. Even when referring to past or future events. I've been walking around my apartment practicing this. It sounds very strange, but still communicates the intended meaning, pretty well.

(I got that idea from my own training with Spanish. I could never learn any tense other than present. It was the block that I never could get over. I'm applying it to this character.)

He also doesn't have a name, right now. I've been sampling names over the past week and haven't found the one that fits my idea of him, yet. So, it's a work in progress.

Add this D&D game...
the softball league that I joined...
the recorder lessons that I want to take...

And you'll see that I'm definitely branching out this year, to pick up new skills that I've never developed before. I'm trying new things and enjoying some old things that are new to me, again.

It's a very exciting summer for me.

If my character actually survives the summer...

Cheers,
Mr. B